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Descartes and Leibniz in 1946 On their 350th and 300th Birthdays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Paul Schrecker
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Extract

The three hundred and fiftieth birthday of René Descartes and the three hundredth of G. W. Leibniz, both being commemorated this year, recall to mind an epoch which, in many respects, resembled our own more than any other period of modern history. The Thirty Years' War during which Descartes served four years in the armies of the Dukes of Nassau and Bavaria and the aftermath of which determined many circumstances of Leibniz's life and work, was largely an ideological war leaving Europe in a state of tension, which the Peace of Westphalia did little to allay. As a matter of fact, the strife continued in many changing forms up to the time of the American Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution, if it can be said at all to have been terminated by these events.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 21 , Issue 80 , November 1946 , pp. 205 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1946

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References

page 206 note 1 Cf. Schrecker, P., La République, fille de Descartes (“La République Française,” Vol. I, No. 2, New York, 1944)Google Scholar.

page 206 note 2 Cf. Schrecker, P., Le problème de la révolution dans la philosophie de l'histoire (“Renaissance,” Vol. I, pp. 270–290, New York, 1943)Google Scholar.

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page 208 note 2 The work was first published in Paris, 1668; second edition, 1677.

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page 210 note 1 Onno Klopp's comprehensive edition had to be given up after the eleventh volume because the Prussian Government debarred the Catholic and Guelphic editor from the Library of Hanover.

page 213 note 1 Cf. Schrecker, P., La méthode cartésienne et la logique (“Revue Philosophique,” 1937, pp. 336–367)Google Scholar. The relevant passages are indicated in this article, the most revealing being the tenth of the Regulae ad directionem ingenii.

page 213 note 2 Logique de port-Royal, Partie III, chapitre 17.

page 214 note 1 Cf. in particular Leibniz's, Nouveaux Essais, livre IV, chap. XVIIGoogle Scholar, and Philosophische Schriften, ed. Gerhardt, , VII, pp. 512 sqGoogle Scholar.

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page 215 note 1 This is why Leibniz called those symbols Machinae spirituales (Philosophischer Briefwechsel, ed. Prussian Academy, I, p. 229Google Scholar).

page 216 note 1 De rerum originatione radicali (Philos. Schriften, ed. Gerhardt, , VII, pp. 302 sq.)Google Scholar.

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page 216 note 3 Unicum opticae, catoptricae et dioptricae principium, first published in Acta Eruditorum, 1682, pp. 185–190Google Scholar, reprinted in Opera, ed. Dutens, , III, pp. 145Google Scholar sq. Cf. the Nouveaux Essais, livre IV, chap. 7, § 15.

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page 217 note 2 Novum Organum, Aphorism lxxiii.

page 217 note 3 Ibid., Aphorism cxxiv.

page 219 note 1 Novum Organum, Aphorism cxxix.

page 221 note 1 Codicis Juris Gentium Praefatio (Werke, ed. Klopp, O., VI, pp. 457 sq.)Google Scholar Cf. Mittheilungen aus Leibnizens ungedruckten Schriften, ed. Mollat, , pp. 5, 8, etc.Google Scholar

page 221 note 2 Ibid.

page 222 note 1 Leibniz und Landgraf Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels. Ein ungedruckter Briefwechsel, ed. Chr. v. Rommel, 1847, Vol. II, p. 233Google Scholar: “Justitia est charitas sapientis, c'est-à-dire une charité, qui est conforme à la sagesse, et charitas est benevolentia generalis.”

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page 225 note 1 Philos. Schr., ed. Gerhardt, , II, p. 337Google Scholar (original text in Latin).

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page 226 note 2 Ed. Gerhardt, III, p. 277.

page 226 note 3 Cod. Jur. Gent. Praefatio, loc. cit.

page 227 note 1 Ed. Gerhardt, III, p. 278.

page 227 note 2 Cod. Jur. Gent. Praefatio, loc. cit.

page 227 note 3 Opera, ed. Dutens, , IV, p. 270 sq. (Latin)Google Scholar.

page 228 note 1 Vide supra, page 221.

page 229 note 1 Werke, ed. Klopp, , V, p. 253 (French)Google Scholar.

page 229 note 2 Ed. Gerhardt, VII, p. 509.

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page 229 note 4 Werke, ed. Klopp, , V, p. 254 (French)Google Scholar.

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page 230 note 2 In Bombos Epigramma (Werke, ed. Klopp, , V, p. 636)Google Scholar. Bishop Bossuet to whom, among others, the epigram had been sent, answered ironically: “You have blasted the bombs, and your epigram directed against this thunderbolt should triumph over all that noise which it helps to forgive.” (Oeuvres de Leibniz, ed. de Careil, Foucher, 2nd ed., I, p. 422.)Google Scholar

page 230 note 3 Opera, ed. Dutens, , I, p. 740Google Scholar.

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page 231 note 2 Oeuvres, ed. de Careil, Foucher, VII, p. 503Google Scholar.